Dental medicine is about everyone. Dental treatment has been practiced since 7000 B.C., and as the times change, the oral health industry is also constantly evolving driven by new technologies. In the 21st century, digital technology is driving oral health care to better protect everyone's health.
According to the report released by iResearch, the size of China's oral medical service market in 2021 will be about 150.7 billion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 300 billion yuan in 2026, reaching about 318.2 billion yuan. It is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.6% from 2022 to 2026.
However, in the face of the rapid development of the market, the problem of insufficient number of dentists has seriously restricted the development of the dental industry. According to the data released by the National Health Commission, the number of practicing dentists (non-assistants) in mainland China has continued to grow rapidly in recent years, reaching 221,000 in 2020, and the number of dentists per 100,000 population has increased to 15.7, with a growth rate of 13.3%, but it is still far lower than that of the United States, South Korea, Japan and other countries.
Using digital technology to liberate doctors' time is the consensus of the entire dental industry. In this context, a medical company from Hefei Dentafei has entered the digital market of oral healthcare.
Photo/Dentafe Dental Medical Industrial Park
Founded in 2019 and headquartered in Hefei, Anhui Province, the founder Huang Kaixian has been deeply involved in the oral medical imaging industry for many years. At present, the company has a team of more than 400 people, and it is expected to grow to more than 1,000 by the end of 2024 with the new plant put into operation. The company has six research centers of hardware, algorithms, software, cloud computing, Academia Sinica and high-end medical equipment, and R&D personnel account for nearly one-third of the total number of employees.
At present, Dentafei has launched a brand matrix with Xianglian, MacVision, Yake Digital Innovation, Physman, and Xiaonuomi Dental as the core, covering the most upstream to the most downstream of the oral medicine industry chain, and has created a complete set of oral medical ecology from medical device development and production, digital platform construction to digital solutions, and demonstration clinics of smart dental clinics.
Huang Kaixian, the founder of Dentafee, believes that the core contradiction of the stomatology industry is that the market is large and the doctors are few, and digital technology can greatly liberate the time of doctors and improve the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment, which is the only way for the development of the stomatology industry.
Refined operation and customized services have become the focus of competition
In recent years, the oral healthcare market has undergone significant changes. On the one hand, in recent years, the proportion of healthcare consumption in total consumption and the proportion of disposable income have been on the rise, and consumers' attention to oral health has continued to increase. In the context of consumption upgrading, consumers are paying more and more attention to oral health. On the other hand, with the continuous release of favorable policies for the development of private medical services such as supporting social medical services in recent years, combined with the characteristics of the industry that oral medical care relies on medical technology rather than equipment and has small investment in the early stage, the private oral medical market has grown rapidly, and the growth rate is faster than that of public medical care.
Huang Kaixian, founder of Dentafee, said that in recent years, there has been an obvious downward trend in oral medicine. The competition in dental medical institutions in first-tier cities is fierce, and at the same time, it has gradually penetrated from first-tier cities to second- and third-tier cities.
Research institutions believe that first-tier cities have higher consumption power and higher attention to oral health, and have become the focus of attention of dental medical institutions in the past few years, so the growth rate will slow down in the future. According to Frost & Sullivan, the market size of the high-end oral medical service market will reach RMB 7.49 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 19.7%, which is lower than the overall market growth rate of 23.3%.
This change has made a significant difference between the oral medical industry in first-tier cities and lower-tier markets: in the first-tier city market, oral medical institutions have begun to focus on refined operations and customized services, providing customers with customized services, family-oriented service plans, detailed oral health guidance and other services and other exclusive services.
In this market context, digital information platforms can help dental medical institutions improve their operations and service levels. Taking FeeLin, an integrated system launched by Dentafee, as an example, the system can realize the interconnection of equipment, doctors and patients, focus on equipment management, give full play to the intelligence of the equipment, and integrate the data generated by the equipment through the FeeLin platform to give full play to the value of data.
Photo/Dentafe Smart Hospital Solution
Specifically, FeeLin provides a series of capabilities such as equipment control, image management, clinical assisted design, clinic patient management (appointment, electronic medical record, image archiving, doctor-patient communication, diagnosis and treatment planning), warehouse management, financial management, denture processing, etc., to help dental medical institutions achieve comprehensive digitalization and improve their operations and service levels.
Popularize services in the sinking market
Compared with first-tier cities, in the sinking market, the competition in cost performance is more prominent. Behind this is the release of the demand for oral health. According to the report of Northeast Securities, the penetration rate of oral medical care in the sinking market of the mainland is still at a low level. Taking orthodontics as an example, the average orthodontic treatment rate of urban residents in first-tier/new first-tier/second-tier/third-tier/fourth-tier cities was 0.68%/0.6%/0.58%/0.52%/0.51%, respectively. With the enhancement of China's overall economic strength, the per capita disposable income level is expected to continue to increase, and the sinking market is expected to continue to grow.
The increasing penetration rate has made the contradiction of insufficient number of doctors more and more prominent. On the one hand, there are fewer dentists in lower-tier cities than in high-tier cities, and the training of general practitioners takes a certain period of time, and on the other hand, oral medicine requires collaboration between doctors and manufacturers, and the progress of manufacturers' urban expansion also affects the number of cooperative doctors.
In this regard, digitalization can also help free up dentists' time from inefficient work.
Huang Kaixian said that on the one hand, Dentafield has launched a large number of dental digital solutions, covering the whole link of multiple key scenarios of oral treatment, and providing doctors with integrated solutions in oral restoration, implantation, orthodontics, periodontal treatment, root canal and other scenarios. On the other hand, relying on the accumulation of a large amount of data, Dentafei began the research and development of artificial intelligence-related technologies three years ago, and integrated them into an integrated system, realizing the linkage of diagnosis, treatment planning and treatment equipment
After using AI intervention, the diagnosis and treatment plan of 34 routine diseases can be completed in 10 seconds, so that doctors can see the diagnosis and treatment plan on the computer, PAD, and mobile phone, and assist the doctor to complete the operation through the surgical navigation robot.
Figure/Report on Diagnosis Suggestions Based on Dentafield Atomic Engine AI+TV-MAR Intelligent CT Algorithm (Partial)
Huang Kaixian gave an example, the AI launched by Dentafield can assist doctors to automatically generate the overall implant diagnosis and the corresponding implant plan through CT images, and synchronize the plan to the surgical navigation robot. The robot can cooperate with the doctor to perform implant surgery in the patient's mouth according to the CT planning plan. From imaging, diagnosis, treatment planning to final surgery, the whole link is intelligent, which greatly improves the work efficiency of doctors, saves valuable time, and focuses more on the diagnosis and treatment of patients.
Create an ecology of the oral medical industry
According to the report released by Meituan Healthcare, in 2023, only 7.59% of enterprises will fully apply digitalization in dental institutions, 31.39% are piloting, and 51.77% have not yet started. From the perspective of the urgency of digital upgrading, 47.97% of institutions hope to carry out digital upgrading within 1-3 years, and 33.16% of institutions hope to upgrade digitally within 1 year.
Looking at the development path of Dentafee, it is not difficult to find that Dentafield has grown from a manufacturer of oral imaging equipment at the beginning of its establishment to a full-link digital solution provider for the oral medical industry, and has developed a complete set of dental digital industry ecology around itself.
On the whole, the Dentafei ecosystem is based on the cloud platform and CT imaging equipment as the core, through the expansion of brands, such as the image link focusing on IOT equipment, focusing on imaging products and supporting platforms, digital upgrade solution provider Dental Digital Innovation, diagnosis and treatment digital solution Physman, and smart dental clinic demonstration clinic Xiaonuomi Dental, jointly building a set of industrial ecology from the design and manufacturing of upstream oral medical devices, to the construction of midstream digital platforms, and finally to the actual landing of the downstream.
Huang Kaixian believes that relying only on a single enterprise and a single product cannot survive in the market for a long time, and ecology is the only way for the development of enterprises. In the promising dental medicine market, whoever occupies the ecological advantage will be able to seize the market.
In Dentafee's office, Dentafield's corporate vision is posted: "Let everyone smile healthily". This vision is becoming a reality as Dentafe continues to grow.